What I Miss About Portland

I still live here in Portland and there are many things that I love. But I want to talk about the things that used to be so cool and aren't here anymore. We have huge amounts of people moving here and they don't really know. (When I go to parties people ask me where I am from and I answer "here" and they say "no really, where are you from?")

Lloyd Center

Lloyd Center still exists. And it's a mall - so why the heck do I miss it? (And don't get me started on the new ugly rug that they put in in the last month)

But Lloyd Center didn't used to be like that. Lloyd Center was an outdoor mall. It was one of the first malls before that was really a thing. Many of the stores, the skating rink, and the bridge over the rink were all there. But the rink and the bridge were outdoors. There was only one floor of stores (with the big anchor stores having more than one floor). The biggest Christmas tree would be put next to the rink. Before Pioneer Square had the Portland Christmas tree, it was at Lloyd Center. A picture of the mall: http://photos1.blogger.com/img/170/6216/1024/Lloyd%20Center%20Mall1.jpg

Going shopping at Christmas time was really cool. It would be nice and warm inside the stores, and then you would bundle up again to go back outside. But the best place was the entrance to Meier and Frank. Meier and Frank was (and is, but they are going to change the name - see my http://thequalityofmercy.blogspot.com/2005/09/whats-in-name.html entry) the center anchor store of the mall. The bridge was right outside the main entrance. Now it is like any other entrance to a store. But back when it was an outdoor mall that entrance was where you told people you would meet. Because the entrance, the transition from outdoors to in, had these really cool heaters in the floor. They went all the way across the entrance and blew hot air up all the time. So if you were waiting for your mom to finish shopping, you would wait on the heaters. People huddled together over the heaters.

Once the mall became a controlled environment they got rid of the heaters. It's hard to explain why they were so cool. But they were.

Church of Elvis

Chuck Palahniuk already wrote about this in his book about Portland. But I still miss it. Who would believe that you would go walking through downtown and find an actually store front with lights and kitchy stuff dedicated at all hours, to the Church of Elvis. It was the kinda funky place that a lot of new places in town try to emulate. Picture: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Old-churchofelvis-big.jpg

Free Performances in the Park

The Rose Garden (the one with roses, not the one with basketball) always had this huge outdoor auditorium. And in the summer, there would be performances of musicals for free. You could wander in and watch Oklahoma or Carousel. It was great. After several years they built a permanent concrete stage so that they wouldn't have to rebuild every year. But gradually they had fewer performances. They then had concerts - but you had to pay. They would fence off the entire park (complicated). And you couldn't just wander in. I saw several performances there and always dreamed of being on that stage. But they don't do it anymore.

Farrells

The original was here. The frilly shirts. The huge candy selection right before the cash register. The sparklers. The gigantic ice cream thingy you could order where they would run around. The gong for the birthday song. The servers who dressed like barbershop singers and toss ice cream scoops through the air at each other.

First the name got sold. It was the "Original Portland Ice Cream Shop" for a while. Now it's completely gone and it's a bunch of condos. (Cool condos though)

Where else do kids have birthday parties?

The Organ Grinder

If my parents really wanted to make me happy when I was a kid, then this was the place. It basically was a restaurant with a really big organ in it. But it had carnival games and video games and a monkey and pizza and the organ played music. What more could a kid want? It was really cool to watch the organ go - it had all these cool parts. The organ did music to accompany silent films and on its own. I don't know if it gave my parents and other adults that painful creepy feeling that I get when I go to Chuck E. Cheese - but I don't think so. It was out on 82nd. Once again - very hard to explain. For pictures see this link: http://www.pstos.org/instruments/or/portland/organ-grinder.htm

The (Really) Old Spaghetti Factory

I know it calls itself the Old Spaghetti Factory. But the real one was downtown on the corner of 2nd and Pine. It has been an underage nightclub for quite a while now. But the original Old Spaghetti Factory - the first one - not only had the food that they have now, but it also had silent movies that you could watch. (Man I watched a lot of silent movies as a kid) And it was in one of those old buildings that was a great example of Portland architecture.

Frederick and Nelson's

Not surprising when you think about it - I am reminiscing for these things around Christmas time because that was when we really went around the city. And Frederick and Nelson's didn't just have Santa Claus, they had the Cinnamon Bear!!

Actually the Cinnamon Bear was a Christmas tradition here in Portland starting in 1939 at the Lipman's store - a local company. When Marshall Field's bought Lipman's they changed the name to Frederick and Nelson's but they kept the Cinnamon Bear. The Cinnamon Bear and Santa Claus were both there to welcome you, hug you (and sometimes frighten the really young kids) but instead of candy canes, the Cinnamon Bear gave out Cinnamon Bear cookies - they were awesome.

The store that opened as the third location of Lipman's in 1912 was a beautiful building. Now that is the location of the Fifth Avenue Suites Hotel. You can get an idea of the ornate architecture when you visit the lobby. And at the motel, they still have souvenir Cinnamon Bears. But it's not the same - no hug, no cookie.

There are probably other things that have come and gone from Portland that I have forgotten or that weren't part of my childhood in the 70's and 80's. And I know that things change and we move on. But I wanted to take a moment to commemorate those things that were unique to Portland, made my upbringing special, and are no longer around.

Later - what still makes Portland rock.

Grading Teachers

So several news stories have come up recently on the issues of teacher accountability.

First, teachers here in Oregon in the Oregon Trail School District (Sandy and others towns) were on strike. From what I understand, the sticking points were not so much pay and benefits, but rather how much control the district can have to transfer teachers who aren't doing well. The strike was 3 weeks before a settlement, and rather ulgy.

Second, one of the failed ballot measures in California pushed by their governer was to have teachers stay on probation for 5 years until they can be tenured.

Both of these seem to be about the issue of grading teachers. How do we (as a society) make sure that the teachers are good?

This is soooo not as simple as keeping a teacher on probation. Or having the right to transfer teachers. This comes down to what makes a good teacher. How do we define that? Then, once we have defined that, how do we make sure that our teachers are that?

So what makes a good teacher?

Is it the test scores that your students get in a similar test to students at other schools?

What if you teach a subject that can't really be tested en masse? (Like social studies in my opinion)
The highest indicator of how well students test is the income and education levels of their parents (according to all those studies that I had to read in teacher school). So are teachers of those students who test well in areas with large amounts of certain kinds of students really good or really bad or ineffectual?

So if it's not test scores - maybe it's how well students do on an assignment, like an essay on World War II compared to others.

To use an economic term: students are not widgets. I remember running into some former students several years ago at a store. They had complained to me so much in school about writing an essay, making a thesis, backing it up with evidence, doing drafts, etc. They did lousy. But they told me after a couple of years off and then going back to school, that they understood now what I was getting at back then. But since they didn't do it then, it wouldn't count.

So still, what is it? How quiet the class is? How involved? How do you rate involvement? Is it the relationship between teachers and students?

The public, for good reasons, would like to know what teachers are doing in the classrooms. But it's not so much a secret, as really hard to describe in a sound bite.

The method that we have had for evaluating teachers was that adminstrators come in and watch your class. They are supposed to meet with you beforehand, let you know they are coming for 2 times, have a surprise visit, and meet with you afterwards to discuss how you did. The state law used to be that it happened every 3 years, now it happens every 2.

Now in theory I love that model. I enjoy having the administrators see what I am doing, I want them to get an idea of what my class does and of course the more administrators are in the classroom instead of meetings I think is good. However, the requirement for evaluating teachers every 2 years happened at the same time as massive budget cuts here in Portland Public Schools. Schools have gone from 7 administrators to 3. Evaluations are often brushed aside for fights, meetings, emegencies, etc.

So we are left with the quick and dirty check up on teachers: how did they do on the test? How many refferals did they have? How many complaints?

Are there bad teachers? Yes. No one wishes more than I that we could make sure that all teachers are fabulous. But the solutions that the Oregon Trail school district and Governer Schwarzenegger were not the right answer either.

Why I Hate Local News

"First, live, local" "News that's to the point"

These are some of the slogans of local news that I can think off the top of my head. And let me tell you why being first or the best at local news is being the best piece of turd.

I don't watch local news very often. I have a DVR and record most of my shows so often the local news being advertised happened yesterday (or last week, depending on how busy I have been). But occasionally I do. Last night for example. So I am watching as I get ready for bed.

So what happened yesterday? Well the riots in France were still going on and they have instituted curfews. Elections all over the country with nation-wide significance. Locally, our Mayor is floating a tri-county tax idea to pay for schools.

So what did the local news that I watched last night show before any of those issues? Apparently a fraternity at OSU has very scary mold in their showers.

Are you kidding me?

The day of the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip I watched a story about the Ferret Olympics about 10 minutes into the broadcast. Clearly much more important.

So here are my suggestions for how to fix local news.

Thoughtful, indepth analysis of local issues. Like longer than 2 minutes.
The "crime" section should be limited and labeled. No interviews with neighbors.
More than 30 seconds on news outside our area. Actually, just as much time on national and international news as on local crime.
The weather for tommorrow should be first in the weather section. Then you can show the graphs and dopplars and pictures.
Sports is fine.
Any cutesy story about puppies and ferrets can be put at the end. Only the end.

Now news in general is losing veiwership and so perhaps other people don't like my suggestions. But I will never come back to watching local news if I continue to be condescended to by the medium.